


Ain't No Easy Way Out

by lazaefair



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Minor Gamora/Peter Quill, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 04:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12741297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: Yondu let him wait, taking him in as the slouch turned into more of a slump, an inward curving of Kraglin’s shoulders that had him looking less like the dangerous, hardened mercenary and more like a man who’d gone six rounds with Lady Shit-for-Luck and lost every one. And still he’d stuck with Yondu through every bit of it, to the last.Variation #48860394 on the "Yondu Lives" genre.





	Ain't No Easy Way Out

**Now.**

If Yondu Udonta were the type of lifeform to swan around writing poetry, he’d probably spend a lot of his time swanning around composing odes to the way Kraglin Obfonteri’s eyes catch and reflect the color of Yondu’s own skin when he’s looking at his captain, blue glinting in the facets of his huge grey irises, until they blaze a shade of azure that would rival the skies over Centauri-IV.

But Yondu ain’t that kinda lifeform, so no, he don’t do any of that shit. Wouldn’t even know what “azure” means, unless he’s talking to a client who might be impressed by that kinda fancy-ass vocabulary. What he actually says is, “Oi, Krags.”

Then, when that fails to rouse the man snoring half on top of him, he says it louder. Then he reaches down to pick up Kraglin’s wrist, where his chrono’s alarm is shrieking louder than a pissed-off Groot, and sticks it in his ear. Twenty years ago, that would’ve done the trick, with the bonus of providing Yondu an amusing show in the form of a flailing, cussing Kraglin rolling off the bed and bouncing off the floor on his bare ass before shooting to his feet with a magnificent glare. Hell, twenty years ago Yondu would’ve bodily kicked him off the bed himself. 

But it’s been a long astral minute since then, and a coupla mutinies between, and a few more million light-years traveled, and _two_ unplanned shitshows involving saving the stars-damned galaxy. And that ain’t saying anything of the near-death brushes, latest of which featured a minor bout of vacuum exposure during which Kraglin and the rest of the Guardians had been forced to watch Yondu’s vital life signs die off one by one in the Quadrant bridge monitors while Peter’s anguished screams echoed over the speakers.

They don’t talk about that. 

What happens is, Kraglin flinches away from the alarm, groans, tugs his wrist out of Yondu’s grasp, and kicks Yondu in the ankle all at the same time. Damn bony scarecrow bedmates. Yondu generously doesn’t cuff him around the head for that, solely out of deference to their many years of shared partnership and not because he’s currently too comfortable to move. 

“Five more minutes,” Kraglin whines into Yondu’s neck.

“That crap didn’t fly the first time you tried it, and it ain’t gonna fly now,” Yondu tells him, but he doesn’t bother to resist the impulse to stroke a hand down the long arch of Kraglin’s spine - what? Fucker might be skinny, but that’s still a lot of bare skin for Yondu’s sleep-addled mind to contemplate, and it’s sprawled all over him - and then he ends the movement with a curl of possessive fingers around Kraglin’s hip. So maybe his mate can be forgiven for getting mixed messages on the commline. 

What the hell. They both deserve a break for once.

* * *

**Then.**

Peter’s crew high-tailed it back to Xandar, after defeating Ego. Back to Nova Prime’s steely embrace and her ever-so-grateful authorization to make use of her personal medical facilities and staff. Nothing was too good for the Guardians of the Galaxy - especially after Peter batted his eyelashes and explained what in the krutaking hell the massive cancerous growth that had suddenly sprouted in the middle of the Xandarian capital had been, and that the Guardians were the ones responsible for stopping it, and that was why the Corps shouldn’t try to arrest the notorious, recognizable, and mostly dead Ravager captain hooked up to the Quadrant’s medbay, regardless of how impressive (or horrific) his rap sheet was. 

Nor should they arrest his second-in-command. Or Ego’s former ward. Oh, and also they should devote their considerable medical resources towards reviving aforementioned Ravager captain rather than leave him rightfully dead for his crimes.

“Petey never did ask for much from anybody,” Kraglin deadpanned a week later.

“Good thing he ain’t half-god no more,” Yondu rasped in agreement. 

He’d just been let out of his stint in the recompression chamber and had to speak in nearly a whisper - grafted tissues still healing - which meant Krags had to lean down to hear. Curving his lanky form over Yondu on the hospital bed, hands braced on either side, as greasy and leather-clad as ever. Bringing close his familiar fragrance of B.O. and Ravager and _home_ in defiance of all known medical recommendations for hygiene and sanitation. 

Yondu tried to show his approval of this with a smile through newly-reconstructed lips. Kraglin, bless his li’l boots, managed to limit his flinch to a blink. 

“Awright. What’s the plan for getting me outta here?” 

“Boss.” Kraglin squinted at him. “You can’t even walk yet.”

Yondu dismissed this with a huff. “I ain’t staying here long enough for Nova Prime to rethink her hospitality and toss us back in the Kyln faster ‘n a whistle.” He jabbed his heavily bandaged hand at the door, a smooth white portal as creepily clean and minimalistic as the rest of this stupid planet. “You think I don’t know about those Nova pukes standin’ guard outside since they floated me in here?”

Kraglin sighed. “They got holocams on you, too,” he admitted grudgingly.

So that would be reason #2 why he was leaning over Yondu all intimate and close, making like it was some lovey-dovey reunion between first mate and captain, and conveniently hiding their mouths from the cams in the ceiling. Good thinking. Yondu patted Kraglin’s cheek just to see his face do that thing where he wanted to smile, but didn’t. 

“Rocket fixed yer arrow,” Kraglin murmured. “Got it and the fin right here.” He put his hand over the jumpsuit pocket on his chest. 

Yondu’s grin grew wider.

“Okay, seriously?” Peter groused from the doorway. “You can’t even flarking walk yet. Quit plotting whatever it is you’re plotting.”

“Don’t recall askin’ you, boy,” Yondu retorted, but he caught the flicker of a smirk on Kraglin before his first mate straightened up.

“You know the cap’n, Pete. Can’t be held down by anybody.”

“They’re not. Gonna. Arrest you.” Peter stalked in, found a chair and folded down in a loose sprawl, radiating exasperation. “Got it in writing and everything. I even made Rhomann pinky-swear.”

Yondu snorted. “So he’s _Rhomann_ now, is he?” But then the rest of the Guardians piled in, and there went the rest of the afternoon.

“You got nothin’ to worry about, old man. We talked the Prime into wiping your records. And lemme tell ya, that was not what we call an easy sell.” Rocket.

“The size of your bounty was prodigious. We could have become incredibly wealthy if we’d turned you in for it!” Drax, chortling.

“Oh my god. Nobody’s turning anyone in for anything, got that?” Peter.

“I thought Nova Prime was so beautiful and kind. She worries much about her planet. Oh! She is also in love with her assistant.” Bantis? Manta? Bug-girl.

“That’s...good to know, Mantis, thank you.” Gamora, busy clocking all the holocams in the room and looking as uncomfortable as Yondu felt.

“I am Groot.” Groot.

“I’m not doin’ anything to the monitors, Groot. Just sayin’, this is the Prime’s personal medical facility. Personal! How often do we get hands on this kinda tech?” Rocket.

“Rocket.” Gamora.

“Gamora.” Rocket.

_“Fine.”_ Rocket, flattening his ears and moving to sulk in a corner after Gamora narrowed her eyes at him.

Yondu shot a pleading glance at Kraglin, who shrugged and mouthed something that sounded suspiciously like, “Family, what can you do?” in a positively soppy undertone. The idiot looked fucking _happy_ about all the commotion. It was conduct grossly unbecoming of a Ravager, was what it was. 

“Anthos above preserve me,” Yondu grumbled and put his hand over his eyes, only to have it lifted away by a pair of leafy branches. Groot stood on his chest, looking down at him with his tiny worried face.

“I am Groot?”

“I’m okay, Twig. Mighta lost my angelic good looks in the fight--” Kraglin and Peter snorted in tandem, sounding like a bad stereo, “--Gamora, flip ‘em off for me.” She looked at him for a solemn moment, sizing him up, then shrugged and deliberately extended both middle fingers. Yondu decided he liked her. “But I been through worse.”

“I am Groot!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Rocket came over and scooped Groot onto his shoulder. “What did I tell you about that kinda language, kid?”

Instead of drooping, the little tree folded his little arms and pouted angrily. Which was still ridiculously adorable. “I am _Groot.”_

“Gonna have your hands full with that one,” Yondu said over Rocket’s squawk. “Can’t wait to watch.”

* * *

It took another goddamn hour - and Drax physically removing Rocket from disassembling one of the medical machines while Peter hopped around nursing scratches on his shins after attempting the same - to kick them out of the goddamn room. Peter still managed to get in a sing-song “Hope you get better soon, _Dad”_ as a parting shot as he swooped out the door.

“Krags. Kill me now. I’m beggin’ ya.”

“C’mon, boss, least nobody cried all over you this time,” Kraglin said, pushing off the wall and sauntering back to his previous position next to the bed. “They thought you was good as dead for a week. Can’t blame ‘em for getting excited.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yondu fixed him with a glare. “Why’re you on their side, anyway? Plannin’ on switching captains again?”

Kraglin’s flinch this time looked a lot more genuine, even for a man who had his rightful captain’s deadliest weapons carried hostage over his heart. Stupid, traitorous, _sentimental_ motherfucker. But where in years past he might’ve cringed out of Yondu’s line of sight, offering apologies and explanations, now he took a deep breath and fixed Yondu with a glare of his own.

They waited a few beats.

“No,” Kraglin said, finally.

Yondu waited some more. “That it? That all you got to say?”

“No, _sir,”_ Kraglin said, jaw ticking. “You’re my cap’n. Always been, always will. I _told_ you I didn’t mean to do a mutiny. I had a plan.”

“A plan, huh?” Yondu sneered. “This better be good. Twenty-seven fucking years, Obfonteri.”

“Thirteen fucking mutinies, Udonta,” Kraglin mimicked right back. “Thirteen mutinies you never heard of, ‘cause they came to me first, and I put ‘em down every single fucking time.” His eyebrows folded into a hard-bunched V and metal flashed as his lips drew back. “Taserface offered me first mate, that last time. Told him ‘no’ with a knife to the throat and said he was lucky it wasn’t an arrow.”

Thirteen...Kraglin wasn’t giving him enough credit, he’d known about eight of those attempts. Mostly small groups of two or three Ravagers who’d gotten too big for their britches and reckoned on more support from their craven friends than they got. Which left five attempts that had apparently slipped under his scanners, and yet somehow turned on the edge of Kraglin’s blade and shaky diplomatic skills.

“Picked a fine fuckin’ time to question me in front a’ the crew,” Yondu muttered. “I had it under control.”

“You didn’t, cap’n, fuck you very much,” Kraglin said. “That was it, Yondu, the big one, and you know it. How many did Rocket kill before we got to him? Six. Six dead Ravagers, and you was gonna let ‘im go right in front of their own fucking crewmates. Goddammit.” He broke off, angling away a little, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re expendable, but we ain’t _that_ expendable.”

_Yes, we are. We all are._ But Krags was on a roll, which happened so rarely Yondu’d learned it was worth holding his temper in check to listen to whatever had his first mate het up enough to directly contradict his captain. Well, he listened most of the time. Sometimes. 

Kraglin glanced back down, surprise in the lift of his eyebrows at Yondu’s silence. “If that Sovereign bitch hadn’t shown up on Contraxia when she did, you mighta been facing a mutiny before we got off the ground. You didn’t hear them - I did. That little scene with Stakar didn’t do you any favors. It’s true!” He threw his hands up as if to ward off Yondu’s glare, but didn’t retreat. “It’s true, sir. Fuck, I tried to tell you. I tried. You fucking locked me out.”

Yondu sighed. On the long hop from Contraxia to Berhert, he’d removed Kraglin’s authorization from his biolock and deleted every message on his comm, the little red notifications crowding furiously into his inbox almost faster than he could dismiss them. 

“Locked you out ‘cause I didn’t want to have to kill ya for telling the stars-damned truth,” he admitted through clenched teeth. 

Kraglin growled. “Fucking unbelievable.” 

Yondu wasn’t expecting him to turn sharply on his heel and walk away. But he turned back again with a flail of long limbs - before Yondu’s heart could sink too far - hands going to his overgrown mohawk and clutching at it like he wished he was pulling at his captain’s scalp instead.

“The kid. Was. A krutaking. Half. God.” Kraglin paused to grind his teeth a bit. “A fucking Infinity Stone. We watched him handle a fucking Infinity Stone and not die! Peter coulda taken everything the Sovereign threw at him and still walked out laughing, and with all his li’l friends, too.” He’d rip all his hair out at the roots at this rate. “And that’s if we _didn’t_ slip him all the help we could get away with under the crew’s nose! Which is what I was tryin’ to tell ya! Turn ‘em in, collect the bounty, then get ‘em out again. Flark’s sake, cap’n, you coulda come up with that plan in your sleep. I didn’t know better, I’d think you was _trying_ to--”

“You better watch yer mouth, boy,” Yondu snapped. His throat hurt, his implant hurt, his heart monitor was spiking, and Kraglin had to stop talking _right now._

He did. But only to whip his head around and stare at Yondu with his dumb huge eyes and his dumb gaping mouth, cheeks stained blue and blotchy. “Son of a bitch, you _were,”_ he said, low and betrayed. “You were gunnin’ to die for him.”

“Ya got some nerve, Kraglin. And you don’t know what the fuck yer talking about,” Yondu said. He lifted a hand, flicked his fingers imperiously. “Gimme my fin and arrow. Then stand in front a’ me and say that again to my face.”

Kraglin went white, then blue again. But instead of stammering _yes, sir_ and doing as he was told, he pulled his expression into a sneer. Yondu watched the process step-by-step in the slow spread of his mouth, the curling lip, the silvered fang slipping out. Kraglin folded his arms and slouched with the same surly insolence that radiated from his mugshot.

“Oh yeah? And then what?” he drawled. “Cap’n. You gonna finish what Taserface started?”

_Dead Ravagers drifting in a silent ragged line outside the airlock, strung out against Berhert’s brilliant backdrop like pearls in a Gramosian Duchess’s necklace._

_Taserface starting to turn towards Kraglin, ugly raw-meat mug split into a leer--_

Yondu narrowed his eyes. “Bastard move, Obfonteri.”

Kraglin at least had the grace to look a little bit abashed. He dropped the sneer and ran his hands over his face, weariness aging him by about ten astral years. “Yeah. Sorry, sir.”

Yondu let him wait, taking him in as the slouch turned into more of a slump, an inward curving of Kraglin’s shoulders that had him looking less like the dangerous, hardened mercenary and more like a man who’d gone six rounds with Lady Shit-for-Luck and lost every one. And still he’d stuck with Yondu through every bit of it, to the last. 

Accidentally starting the mutiny on Berhert, well. Desperation made folks do desperate things. Wasn’t like Yondu didn’t have some significant krutaking mistakes cluttering up his ledger, either.

“Krags.”

“Sir.”

“I ain’t never gonna kill ya. You know that, right?”

Kraglin laughed, a jagged, humorless bark Yondu didn’t like the sound of. “You really prob’ly should, sir. It’d be yer right.”

“Oh, for the love of-- I’m tryin’ ta-- ah, fuckit.” Yondu flung an arm out to grab a fistful of jumpsuit. Prickling pain broke through several layers of painkillers, and he gritted his teeth as he hauled the other man down to kissing distance. This close, he could see Kraglin’s pupils dilate, sending blue-sheened ripples through the depthless grey starbursts ringing them. 

“I ain’t. Gonna. Kill ya. Understand?” he hissed. Like scraping an open wound over gravel.

They held eye contact for a beat longer, but thank Anthos, the hangdog expression on Kraglin’s face finally slid into something more wry, more like himself. 

“Okay. Okay. I gotchu, boss.” He sniffed, relaxing into Yondu’s hold, and the heart monitor next to them leveled off to a steadier cadence. “Hafta say, thas downright romantic, comin’ from you.”

“Damn straight. You want a singin’ hologram with that? How about chocolates?” Yondu said over Kraglin’s low chuckle. “Almost died, y’know, I’m feelin’ generous. Take advantage while ya can.”

“Keep jokin’ about dying and Peter’ll wind up killing you himself,” Kraglin said, smiling. He leaned up a little so they weren’t in so much danger of bashing noses. But he didn’t go far.

* * *

The escape plan went something like this:

_1) Get walking._

“Dontchu dare cry on me again,” Yondu warned as Peter took his turn at supporting him around the physical therapy center.

“I wasn’t gonna!” Peter lied, badly. His eyes were definitely watering, but Yondu also noted a distinctly goofy tilt to his smile.

“Sure, whatever you say, kid.”

These were his first steps after waking up, trying to master all his brand-new muscles and organs and nerve endings, custom-printed in Xandar’s finest bio-vats. Fuck, he felt like he’d had twenty years taken off his old carcass. And about as wobbly as a newborn. 

“Okay, that’s...great, you’re doing just...fine,” the therapist said. Zie were an anxious type, fluttering around them fit to vibrate out of zir pretty pink skin - though that mighta been more on account of Kraglin. He wasn’t doing anything other than standing silently over zir shoulder. In full Ravager reds. Grinning.

Ah, well. Maybe zie’d still be willing to show them the really good stretches. Yondu had it in mind to find out just how flexible his shiny new body was. Judging by Kraglin’s grin, so did he.

_2) Reinstall fin._

“The flark didja do to my fin!” Yondu all but yelled, throwing himself backward on the bed and away from his meal tray.

“What, you don’t like my improvements?” Rocket folded his arms and lounged in his chair, grinning smugly.

“Increased sensitivity to organics, I said, so’s I can track my targets better, _not so I can fucking commune with the fucking vegetables in my dinner!”_ Yondu said, feeling more than a little justified with the yelling as he wrestled with the unmistakably reproachful feelings currently being broadcast by the carrots on his plate. “They’re fuckin’ dead, Rocket! And I’m tryin’ ta _eat_ them! While they’re _talkin’_ to me!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, everyone’s a fuckin’ critic these days,” Rocket said, hopping off the chair and hopping on the bed. He produced a precision tool out of his jumpsuit and reached over Yondu’s head without so much as a by-your-leave. Yondu would’ve twitched away, except Rocket did _something_ up there and the whole implant went numb. As did a small but important sector of his brain. 

“Hey, watch it, ya oversized rodent!”

“Hold still, ya oversized blueberry,” Rocket snapped back, fiddling around. Yondu could see - and, disturbingly, feel - electric sparks buzzing off the fin. “For your information, I researched for like a whole week while I was fixing this thing, so at this point I’m basically the galaxy’s foremost non-Centaurian expert on Zatoan neurobiology.”

“Are ya, now.”

“You kidding me? Those fancy Shi’ar fucks at the Xeno Institute wouldn’t know a _tahlei cilia_ from a _tahlei metacarpal_ if ya yanked the tailfeathers outta their butts.” Something crackled, loud. “And there - we - go.”

_“Shitting Supremor on a pogo stick,”_ Yondu hissed quietly. Felt like flarking fireworks going off behind his eyeballs. But then the organic sensory field came back online without much fanfare, considering the ramp-up. It was a finely tuned empathic connection to all forms of life, a neurological mesh laid over the five standard senses - woven so deep into the core of his being, even decades after they’d sawed his natural crest off he’d still felt the vestiges of it niggling in the scars around the replacement implant.

Yondu let out a breath, leaned back and closed his eyes. Reached out with his heart and mind. Checked on the guards at the door. Rode along with two nurses going down the hall on their rounds. Said hello to the graceful growing trees below his window. Counted the fur on Rocket’s ears. (The carrots stayed quiet, thank Anthos.)

Fuck, he’d missed this. Ain’t like the Kree had much use for primitive gobbledygook about becoming one with nature or some shit. They wanted a battle machine - just the part of him that could make the yaka arrow dance and kill for them. So they boosted that part and removed everything else, and got their battle machine.

He was gonna owe the rodent big time for this. 

“Well?” Rocket said. “Feel better now, princess?”

Without opening his eyes, Yondu put his lips together and blew.

The arrow lifted off the bedside table, sweet and dainty as a bodice-ripping maiden in one of Kraglin’s trashy holonovelas. He saw its flight in the darkness behind his eyelids, trailing red flame. Felt the sudden spike of fear in the two guards outside.

“Yeah,” he said, and opened his eyes. “S’good to be back.”

_3) Kill the Nova pukes keeping him under guard._

This part of the plan, predictably, ran into resistance.

“No,” Gamora said.

“That’s literally the cold-blooded murder of innocents, and then they’d throw you in the Kyln again, so obviously I can’t let you do that, seriously, don’t do that,” Peter said.

“It’d prob’ly make things a bit too complicated, boss,” Kraglin said, poker-faced in response to Yondu’s wink. “I say we just hit ‘em over the head really hard.”

_4) Hit the Nova pukes over the head really hard._

_“No,”_ Gamora said.

“Oh my god what the fuck is _wrong_ with you?” Peter said.

“Y’all’re no fun,” Yondu said. “All right, Greenie’s got an excuse, but I don’t believe any son a’ mine - Ravager raised and trained - would balk at a li’l bit of non-lethal violence like that. C’mon, boy, s’just a concussion. You oughta know, you got enough to thicken yer skull up, growin’ up. Builds character.”

Peter pointed a finger at him. “You are so full of shit, Yondu,” he said, but his poker face wasn’t nearly as good as Kraglin’s. 

Yondu smirked. “Now, is that any way to talk to yer father?”

_“Daaaaaaaad,”_ Peter whined, pitching his voice up outrageously, and Gamora rolled her eyes so hard Yondu swore he could hear the cybernetics grinding in her sockets. Family, huh.

_5) Bribe Yondu and Kraglin’s favorite nurse into smuggling them out._

“Sweetie, I’m flattered,” Shima - dark, lovely, terrifyingly competent - said. “But I’m also disappointed.”

“What, that we’re askin’ ya to compromise your integrity or some such?”

“No, that that was your opening offer. Makes me wonder if you really are the big bad space pirate who escaped from the Kyln and got plastered all over the newsfeeds a few years back. Come on, I was expecting a little more savvy here. I’d be breaking every medical and criminal protocol we have, probably lose my job over it. You have to make it worth my while, right?” she said, bustling about the room as if she hadn’t just matter-of-factly stomped the big bad space pirate’s ego into itty-bitty pieces. 

Yondu opened his mouth, then closed it. Kraglin again stood silent behind him, but Yondu just knew his disrespectful upstart of a first mate was keeping all the sniggers bottled up for later.

“Aw, honey, don’t look like that,” Shima said. “I’m just teasing.”

There was nothing for it. “Come with us,” Yondu said. “We could use a good medic on the crew.”

She glanced at him. “What, the Guardians?”

“Naw. My crew. Yondu Ravager Clan.” He said this with what Peter called his best _‘conning little old ladies outta their lunches’_ smile, while the fin registered a tangled spike of emotion coming out of Kraglin. Yeah. Been a while since anyone had said that name with pride. 

He aimed to start now.

And it got Shima to pause in the middle of measuring out vials, which Yondu counted a minor victory. He and Krags had found her nigh-impossible to rattle or deter, an ideal quality she shared with the late and lamented Doc on the _Eclector._ (Anthos rest her soul. The old bat was probably out in the Lifestream sticking surprise needles into whatever unfortunate deity she worshipped even now.)

“Mercenary medic, huh? What would you pay me?”

“Room and board, plus equal share in all profits,” Yondu answered promptly. “Plus free reign in yer own medbay. Ain’t nobody interferes with the medic.”

Shima raised her browbones. “Uh- _huh.”_

“Yep.” Yondu spread his fingers, turned up the charm. “Thrillin’ pirate adventures, out beyond the stars. Footloose an’ fancy-free. No?” He cocked an eyebrow. “You’ll never take another order from yer stupid, high ‘n mighty prick of a boss again.”

She laughed. “Okay, you know how to get my attention, at least. I’ll think about it. Now.” She lined six hyposprays up on the bedside table. Dammit. “Hold still.”

_6) Just walk the hell outta there._

The towering spacecraft in Docking Bay #691 sure was a sweet sight for sore eyes. He’d know that shape anywhere - the ship that flew him to freedom, the first ship of his command - but she didn’t otherwise much resemble the Quadrant that’d formed the core of the _Eclector_ for most of Peter’s lifetime. 

Mostly she was looking a lot...cleaner.

“Flarkin’ hell,” Kraglin breathed, craning his skinny neck to take the sight in.

“Guess they didn’t fuck it up too bad,” Yondu said, but they both knew he was impressed. Durasteel gleamed and plasglass sparkled, all twenty-five stories of her. Stars, she hadn’t been in anywhere near as good condition when Stakar handed her over, eons ago. Probably hadn’t looked this mint coming out of the shipyard.

Rocket was waiting on the bridge.

“Aw, Rocket, all this for me? Ya shouldn’t’ve,” Yondu drawled, ducking through the hatch with Kraglin just half a step behind. Even the interiors had been fixed up and shined. “Why, I’m downright touched.”

Rocket smirked. “Oh, you’re _touched,_ all right. And don’t get the wrong idea, I didn’t do it for you.” 

“Good, ‘cause I’d hate to owe a favor to the likes of you.” Yondu wandered down the center deck towards the viewport.

“I did it for Quill.” Rocket scratched his muzzle, casual-like. “Y’know, since this is the new headquarters for the Guardians and all.”

Kraglin broke into a coughing fit at that. Yondu, who’d been running loving fingers over brand-new control surfaces (smudging up the screens in the process, but that was gonna happen soon enough anyway), paused mid-smudge. “Whadju just say? I just got outta the medcenter, mind. Don’t reckon my ears heard ya right just now.”

“Oh, while you were taking your sweet time gettin’ back on your feet, a couple of us went back to Berhert. The _Milano_ was busted up beyond repair. Couldn’t recover her. So this,” Rocket gestured around them, grinning, “is our future home sweet home.”

Silence settled over the bridge like a bird of prey alighting gently on a very, very thin branch.

Which snapped in right in two as the furry krutaker of a bastard raccoon burst into braying honks of laughter.

“You furry krutaker of a bastard raccoon,” Yondu said, with feeling.

“Fuckin’ A, your _faces,”_ Rocket gasped, holding for dear life onto the arm of the pilot’s couch. “Fuck, I need a holocam. No, don’t worry, sweetcheeks, this one’s all yours. I sold the anulax batteries I stole and got us a nice shiny corvette with the proceeds.”

Kraglin whistled low, slinging himself into one of the nav station seats and putting his boots up. “Corvette, huh? Yer goody-goody Nova buddies know about that part a’ the story?” 

“Yeah, ‘cause I was gestated yesterday. In a nice, cozy test tube.” Rocket gave him a withering look. “No, what do you think?”

“Guess you ain’t as slow as ya look.”

“Up yours, beaky,” Rocket said without any heat. “Anyway, I gotta go pick Groot up from crèche. They’ve been fillin’ his head with all kindsa nonsense about sharing and caring and crap like that.” He put on a faux-sorrowful expression that mostly made him look like a constipated rat. Yondu told him this, to which he responded with a raised middle claw. Seemed Peter was rubbing off on the Guardians same as he’d rubbed off on the Ravagers.

“Oh, and by the way,” Rocket paused on the threshold on his way out. “Pete and Drax should be arriving back this afternoon, so you lovebirds better get busy doing whatever it is Ravagers do to christen your ships, unless you want Quill gettin’ an eyeful when he swings by.”

“Eh, he’s seen worse,” Yondu said, which was true.

“Yondu, I say this from the bottom of my heart, as the only friend you have left in the whole wide flarkin’ galaxy,” Rocket said. _“Never_ tell me the details.”

“Go on an’ get Twig,” Yondu said, making sure to leer extra-wide at Kraglin, who leered right back. “‘Less you want ringside seats to an eyeful, yerself.”

_“Humies,”_ Rocket said, throwing his paws up, and left.

Silence descended once more, but a good deal more comfortably this time. Yondu slumped into the captain’s chair with a sigh. (Nova mechanics had managed to buff out decades-old buttcheek imprints, but he relished the thought of putting ‘em right back in for years to come.) Xandar’s capital spread out beyond the bridge viewport, a spectacular sight of gently glowing architecture that woulda set Yondu’s teeth on edge if he wasn’t in such a good mood. They sat quiet for a spell, him and Kraglin, soaking it in. 

After a while, he heard two thumps and a creak of leather behind him, which meant Kraglin’d taken his boots off the nav console and leaned forward.

“Well, sir?”

“Well, what?”

“Ya gonna do anything about the chrono runnin’ out on our alone-time, or are ya gonna make Rocket a liar?”

Yondu watched his reflection in the plasglass smile, painting a toothy gold-tinted slash right across the spire of the Xandar Cathedral Church of Our Lady of War. 

“Hey, Krags.”

“Yeah, boss?”

He raised his hand above the back of the chair and crooked two fingers. “C’mere.”

* * *

Peter had some things on his mind when he finally swung by, ambling onto the bridge blissfully ignorant of the goings-on that’d been going on not twenty minutes prior. 

Things like trying to convince Yondu to give up pirating. Things like going on the straight-and-narrow.

Yondu barked a laugh in his face, vocal chords rattling harshly. “And what would I do, boy? With my _resume?”_ Lucky for him, sarcasm could squeeze through even permanent scarring. Peter winced. “Merchanting? Nursing babies? Sellin’ fruit at one a’ them flarking farmer’s markets?”

“Fruit lattes in a cafe, sir,” Kraglin contributed, straight-faced and back to lounging in the pilot’s seat. “I hear they’re gettin’ real popular with the young pro-fess-ion-als these days.”

“See,” Yondu pointed at Kraglin. “With that kinda brainpower behind me, we’ll get the operation up and running in no time. Special Ravager lattes for everyone.” 

“Jesus give me strength,” Peter mumbled into his hands, accompanied by their sniggers. Felt good, tag-teaming the kid - just like the old days - which meant Yondu realized a shade too late what was about to come out of Peter’s mouth when he lifted his head and fixed Yondu with a disturbingly sincere expression on his face.

“You could join the Guardians,” was, yep, what came out of his mouth. All soft and hopeful. 

Time was, naked sentiment like that woulda provoked a slap upside the head - or at least, every ounce of mockery it deserved, the most withering barbs in Yondu’s considerable arsenal. He had one of those barbs on the tip of his tongue ready to launch, except he caught sight of Kraglin in his peripheral vision: gone all still and tense, eyes wide (irises washed out to pale grey in the flarking omnipresent Xandarian sunlight), staring at him and Peter both. 

_You’re flarking shitting me, KRAGLIN wants to join the Guardians (fuck, what do I do without him)_ ran through Yondu’s head in a panicked scrawl before he got a hold of himself.

Fine. Time for the plain fuckin’ truth, then.

“I’m too old, son. Too set in my ways.” He waved towards the next dock down, where Peter and Drax had set their pretty new corvette. “What happens when we’re in a firefight and one a’ them yells ‘Captain’, huh? Which one of us turns around? Which one gives an order? Which one do they listen to?”

Kraglin got it almost immediately, and Yondu had to work to squash the powerful wave of relief that broke over him as his mate stood up and moved to stand behind him, just off his right shoulder. Smooth as an arrow slotting into its well-worn harness. He was conscious for the first time of the tension that uncoiled unbidden from his spine simply at the knowledge that Kraglin was where he should be, in the place he’d occupied for years. Watching Yondu’s back.

He waited a long moment. Waited for Peter to realize the absurdity of a crew with two captains. For him to picture the right royal disaster that would be Yondu Udonta trying to take orders from, well, anybody. 

Peter looked as mutinous as he’d ever done as a rebellious teenager assigned to weeks of scrubbing shifts on the _Eclector._ “You shouldn’t go back to pirating,” he finally muttered.

“You tellin’ me what to do, boy?” 

“Yeah. I am. Those guards let you walk out of the medcenter without a peep because _I_ personally guaranteed the Planetary Council you wouldn’t be a danger to anyone while you were here. And there’s a bunch of ‘em who still wanna arrest you.” Peter jabbed a hand towards the city beyond the viewport. “Nova Prime cleared your records, did you know that? Yours and Kraglin’s. You’re totally clean now.”

“Just when I was finally gettin’ to a respectable bounty, too,” Kraglin said in his most mournful voice. 

Yondu smirked. “An’ why would I give a good goddamn what the Nova have on me?”

“Because the Nova Corps have a records-sharing agreement with the Kree Enforcers under the peace treaty and now they can’t use those files to hunt you down ‘cause you’ve been wiped from the system, that’s fucking why,” Peter snapped.

The sight of Peter squaring right up to Yondu, looking him in the eye with a steely resolve he’d seen only a couple of times before - all traces of the teenager fallen away like scales off an Achernonian - took Yondu a fair ways aback. Maybe he shouldn’t’a been surprised. But he was.

“Uh…” That is, until Peter’s brain appeared to catch up with his mouth. “Rocket told me. About the Kree.”

Yondu scrubbed a hand over his face. “Shoulda run him through when I had a chance,” he said, flopping down into his chair. Kraglin snorted. “Fuck. Ain’t that bastard ever heard of secrets?”

“So you were never gonna tell me.”

“What’s there to tell, boy? The past is the past. Ain’t no use cryin’ about it now.” He watched Peter flail about in the corner of his eye.

“Look, it’s just, we take jobs with Kree clients sometimes, okay? Secrets like that - if we’d met the wrong guy, let slip the wrong thing at the wrong time--”

Yondu curled his lip. “Now, I know I taught ya better than that.”

“I just don’t want to get you killed!” Aw, look, l’il Quill had balled his hands into fists. Adorable. “I don’t want to watch another parent die. Ever again. So _sue_ me.”

Yondu sat there and looked up at his-- at his-- Okay. Fuck it. At his godsdamned _son._ Peter stood tall on the deck, breathing heavily, eyes wild with a fear that shone clear as the light that came outta him back on Ego’s planet. Yondu opened his mouth to say - what, he didn’t have a damn clue, but Kraglin cleared his throat first.

“Boss? Can I have a word?”

Yondu shot him his best _really?_ look, but got up and followed his first mate to the back of the bridge.

“What the hell, Krags,” he growled as soon as they got there, not bothering much to lower his voice.

“I been doing a lot of thinkin’,” Kraglin said, ignoring Yondu’s snide _that’s a first._ “Had some time on my hands, waitin’ for you to rise outta yer own flarking ashes. You was _dead,_ Yondu.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yondu squinted, unimpressed. “Whatcher point?”

Krags squinted back at him, mouth turning down into a scowl. “And why was you dead, cap’n? Why’d ya stay behind? You’re Yondu fuckin’ Udonta. Yondu _don’t give a shit about nothing an’ nobody, ain’t never stopped when a man fell behind_ Udonta. So why’d ya do it? Why did you fly into the goddamn fucking void, without a goddamn fucking spacesuit, with yer goddamn fucking eyes open?”

“I ain’t partial to your tone, Obfonteri,” Yondu said, teeth gritted against the fluctuating surges of fear, grief and anger broadcasting through the bridge. He’d thought he’d gotten a handle on the sensory field while stuck in the medcenter, but Peter always blasted his feelings at top fucking volume, and for some fool reason the fin had developed an _affinity_ for Kraglin or some such nonsense. 

“Wouldja just--” Kraglin pinched the bridge of his nose. “You _died for him,_ Yondu. Gave up the fuckin’ spirit, for Peter. You did that for him.”

“Krags…” Yondu sighed. “Get to the point faster.”

“So you go off an’ get yerself a brand-new bounty, brand-new enemies,” Kraglin said, still scowling. “On top of the old ones. Like the whole flarking Nova Empire. And then ya get hunted down through the whole flarking galaxy, ‘cause word’s out that Yondu ain’t got an army no more. You know what Peter’s gonna do when that happens?”

“Prob’ly trail after me singing kumbaya tunes at the top a’ his overgrown lungs,” Yondu said, sniffing. “While holdin’ hands with Greenie, if she ever loses her mind and lets him.”

“Yeah. You really wanna put him in that kinda danger? Turn his allies against him? Maybe,” Kraglin said, widening his eyes, “maybe the do-gooders’ll even try to hire him to hunt _you_ down. Be a damn shame to put him in a bind like that. ‘Specially after you died for him, and all.” 

Well. Seemed _somebody’d_ been practicing the art of stabbing innocents in the back. Least the skinny fucker hadn’t used something from his favorite knife collection. “The fuck do ya want me to do, Obfonteri? I ain’t retirin’--”

“Ain’t sayin’ you should,” Kraglin said quickly. “Just sayin’...just sayin’ maybe you could be a li’l more selective with your jobs, yeah? Up your standards. Just a li’l bit.”

Yondu looked into those wide eyes, hopeful eyebrows and all, and sighed again. “Ya know, I never thought it’d be you, Krags. You weren’t never supposed to go all,” he waved a hand around, “soft on me.”

“I ain’t _soft,”_ Kraglin said. The hopeful eyebrows had turned into a tiny hopeful smile. “I’m fucking _practical.”_

“Sure ya are,” Yondu said. He was never gonna hear the end of this, he could already tell.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [on tumblr](http://lazaefair.tumblr.com/) and come yell at me to finish writing the second chapter of this story.


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